Hello and welcome back!

We’re on Day 5 of the 7-Day Transform Your Body, Transform Your Mind Challenge. I hope at this point you are getting a streamlined focus on what you want to accomplish. Here are the previous days that we went over:

Day 1: What’s my Outcome?

Day 2: Create a Massive Action Plan that leads to your Outcome

Day 3: Clarify your priorities.

Day 4: Choose one action to lead to your goal

Today, we’re going to build upon what we talked about yesterday (creating habits) and zero in on the one routine that will give you the most return on your productivity.

CREATE INTENTIONAL MORNING ROUTINES

All of the new actions that you’ve identified this week may seem overwhelming. Maybe you’ve identified that you want to be financially free, but you barely remember to check your bank balances let alone find time to budget.

Enter the morning routine.

You Have More WIllpower in the Morning.

The mornings are the perfect time to tackle all the things that are important to you. For example, many studies have shown that you’ll be committed to a morning workout versus an evening one.

In the morning, you are more likely to have more willpower and discipline. Your decision-making faculties haven’t been depleted from the other busy-ness that has been thrown at you during the day.

When you tackle your most important task in the morning, you bring to it fresh eyes and mental energy.

Found Time

Time is the biggest excuse that people have not to do anything. Creating an intentional morning routine, though, will give you found time.

In the morning, you can choose to wake up 15-30 minutes earlier than you normally would have in order to find the time. You can set up a reminder on your phone or watch, and you’ll find the time to create that household budget or work on your side-hustle.

Also, when you are clear and intentional about scheduling a task, you will increase the chance of getting it done.

Live Out Your Outcome + Why

This past week we may have identified a few gaps that we want to bridge. When you incorporate your personal improvement categories, you easily create an intentional morning routine that you will stick to.

You’ll be more excited about getting up 15 minutes earlier, and before you know it, your routine will morph into something even more sacred to you: it will become a ritual.

Rituals are those actions that look like routines, but what may start with an outward or external focus (lose weight), becomes an internal one (be my best self to create a better world). You are more deliberate in the act of doing this routine on purpose and feel a sense of purpose and enlightenment.

This is why it’s so important to focus on your Outcome and not your activities; this is also why you need to have a compelling and purposeful Why. Your Why is your fuel that will propel you toward your Outcome.

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF A MORNING ROUTINE:

6AM: Wake. Water and coffee.

6:30AM: Morning pages and protein drink

7AM: Workout + clean up for the day

8AM: Breakfast

8:30AM: Off to work.

Creating an intentional morning routine, even as simple as sitting with a hot beverage for 20 minutes, will do wonders for keeping you grounded throughout the day.

YOUR EVENING ROUTINE

Set yourself up for success in the morning by following these tips for the evening:

Brain dump all the activities of the day on to a piece of paper. I use a bullet journal to dump the crazy stuff of the day. That way I’m not bringing it to bed for my brain to analyze to death. (I will write a post about creating your perfect sleep environment in the future.)

Your brain dumps don’t even have to be complete sentences. Just some observations, key words, or random thoughts jotted down.

Review the next day. This literally takes a minute to glance at your schedule and see what’s up for tomorrow. Tweak and change it as needed from whatever you gleaned from your brain dump.

This is also a perfect time to unleash your subconscious mind. Focus on the current outcome you want, like being financially free, and visualizing all the things you will do to get there. Create a vision so compelling, you give yourself chills.

While you sleep, your brain will be at work creating new neural pathways for you, strengthening connections and weakening others. This learning process happens a lot quicker while we sleep, so why not give your brain a specific problem to muddle over?

Also, your subconscious is more receptive as you go to bed, and as you wake up. Focusing on your outcome during those times will strengthen your mental resolve to go for your dreams.

Plan and set your wake-up time. You’ll eventually get to the point where your body just naturally wakes up at the same time, but until then, set yourself up for success by setting your alarms.

If you have a hard time waking up, instead of relying on a snooze button, set multiple alarms at 15-30 minute increments a full hour or two before your intended wake up time.

Tomorrow we’ll be putting it all together, but for now, it’s your turn to unleash the power of these routines!

Before you go to bed tonight, brain dump all the things that happened today into your journal or notebook, review what’s on your docket for tomorrow, and plan when you need to get up to make room for your One Action. In the morning, go directly to your One Action and dedicate that first 15-30 minutes of your day to it.

Remember to celebrate showing up! Even if you just sit there and stare over your coffee, you showed up, and you should celebrate it!

Please share your insights in the comments below, or feel free to use the image to post on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter with the hashtag #TransformIn2017.

Until tomorrow,

Xoxo

Liza

PS

I will be moving to a self-hosted site soon, and I don’t know if I will be able to move my blog subscribers with me. So, I’m collecting email addresses just in case. I’d love it if you would enter in your name and email address just to let me know that you’d like to move over with me. If not, that’s cool! 🙂

Thank you to the readers who have already responded–I appreciate you! ::hugs::

PPS

For those of you who wanted daily workout inspiration, here is the workout + smoothie for tomorrow’s 15-Minute Fix.

FRIDAY’S 15-MINUTE FIX

(Click HERE to get details and links to instructions/form tutorials!)